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The Legal Case Against Palestinian Statehood
(Wall Street Journal) David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey - Putting the UN - and particularly the General Assembly - in the business of state recognition is inconsistent with international law and the UN Charter. The UN - General Assembly or Security Council - has no power to create states or to grant formal "recognition" to state aspirants. Those who cite as precedent the General Assembly's 1947 resolution providing for the partition of Palestine misread that instrument and its legal significance. Resolution 181 did not create or recognize the proposed Jewish and Arab states, nor were they granted automatic admission to the United Nations. The Palestinian Authority does not meet the basic characteristics of a state as authoritatively articulated in the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States. To be a state, an entity must have (1) a permanent population, (2) a defined territory, (3) a government, and (4) the capacity to enter into relations with other states. The PA has neither a permanent population nor defined territory, nor does it have a government with the capacity to enter into relations with other states and keep international accords. The PA does not control any part of the West Bank to the exclusion of Israeli authority, and it exercises no control at all in the Gaza Strip. The PA does not, therefore, qualify for recognition as a state and, concomitantly, it does not qualify for UN membership, which is open only to states. Messrs. Rivkin and Casey served in the Justice Department during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.